FLOWER MOUND - Ever since this former frontier settlement was
incorporated 50 years ago, town officials and residents took pride
in protecting their slice of rural paradise along Grapevine
Lake.

Town leaders fashioned one master plan after another to protect
surrounding ranches, open landscapes, clusters of live oaks and
other "ecological resources" from the threat of urbanization as the
town flourished, eventually becoming one of America's
fastest-growing cities in the late 1990s.

The town even installed a wrought-iron fence around the town's
namesake - a 50-foot-high mound brimming with wildflowers - to
protect the area. But a new intruder looms - bulldozers plowing up
the old prairie to make way for gas wells, compressor stations,
storage tanks, drilling pits and pipelines.

Some residents who have witnessed rampant oil and gas
development in other regions of the country fear that Flower Mound
could become an industrial eyesore.

Fearing the worst, some town officials and a growing number of
residents are fighting back - with protests, lawsuits and drilling
moratoriums. Town officials, wary of safeguards promised by state
and federal officials, recently set up their own regulatory
apparatus intended to protect people from the environmental hazards
that can come with nearby gas drilling and production.

But the question that lingers for many residents is whether it's
too late. They wonder whether the rolling, tree-lined piece of
prairie upon which they built their homes, their schools and their
lives may be lost to heavy industrialization. Some residents are
moving out, a study found some real estate values are dropping, and
those left behind fear the Flower Mound they knew is disappearing
by the day.

•

Garrick and Kirsten Palmer moved to the western side of Flower
Mound eight years ago to enjoy the beauty of nature. They'd sit on
their front porch in the mornings, sipping coffee, enjoying their
panoramic view of pastures dotted with cattle. At night they sat
outside and watched their two sons play as the scent of freshly
baled hay filled their lungs.

In the spring of 2010, Simonson and a group of residents,
calling themselves Flower Mound Shares, campaigned for three new
Town Council candidates who promised to impose a moratorium on
drilling. The moratorium was enacted on May 28, but it did not
nullify permits that had already been approved. The day before the
moratorium went into effect, Titan Industries got its permit for
one of the most controversial drilling sites to date.

The permit was for the gas drilling pad located on Hilliard
Field, near the intersection of FM2499 and FM3040. Titan is
interested in 20 wells on the land, but the well site is nestled in
the heart of downtown, with two schools, a Tom Thumb grocery,
hundreds of upscale homes, and even historic Flower Mound
nearby.

A resident of the more urbanized eastern half of town since
2002, Simonson says she and her husband, Keith, didn't notice when
the drilling started on the rural western side of town.

"Just like many other people who have other things going on in
their lives, I didn't pay attention. … This is Flower Mound,
perfect community. They don't let any kind of bad thing happen
here," she says.

When she learned of plans to build a centralized saltwater
collection facility near her home, she feared her community would
begin to look like the refineries in New Jersey she remembers from
her childhood. Soon after, she started reading through everything
on the town's website.

"I could see they really had some good plans," she says. "Then I
started to understand there was a total disconnect between master
planning, 'SmartGrowth' philosophy and the way they were permitting
gas wells."

So Simonson and Parkesh Prameswaran, who lives with his wife and
children near the Hilliard drill site, decided to take action. They
sued Titan and the town because they believe the town's oil and gas
ordinances violate state zoning laws.

Prameswaran's biggest concerns are his two children's exposure
to emissions. His 8-year-old son goes to Bluebonnet Elementary now,
and his daughter, now 4, will start there next year. Both
Bluebonnet and Shadow Ridge Middle School are roughly half a mile
from Hilliard Field.

"It is like an experiment being performed on kids so that 10
years later we know this is what happens. I don't want my kids
exposed to that," he says.

But the lawsuit was dismissed Oct. 4 by a state district judge
who ruled that she lacked jurisdiction and the town's ordinances
did not violate state law or any other Flower Mound ordinances.

Simonson acknowledges that losing the battle over Hilliard Field
was a huge blow. For a long time, she wrestled over whether to
fight or flee. Eventually, she came to a decision, summed up on a
sign sitting in her front lawn: "The land is our land, not gas
land."

An appointed board has been reworking Flower Mound's oil and gas
regulations during the drilling moratorium. At an October Town
Council meeting, Simonson and other citizens petitioned the town to
consider adopting procedures used in neighboring Southlake, where a
series of public meetings are held before a gas well is approved by
the town.

Flower Mound's current policy is to approve wells
administratively, which means no public or Town Council input is
required. The town manager allows drilling if the well site is
within the town ordinances. Simonson and other residents believe
that public input is needed before wells are placed in populated
areas and that well sites should follow zoning regulations.

"We don't put pig farms in the center of Flower Mound," Simonson
says. "We don't put giant paper pulp factories in the middle of
Flower Mound. We zone that. ... But we don't do that for gas wells.
For me, it is a fairness issue."

She says her husband, who was deployed in Iraq most of last
year, is proud of what she's doing. So she plans to keep on
fighting, but now she wants to direct her energy more toward the
state and national level.

"You either fight for what you believe in or let the status quo
stand," Simonson says. "You have to decide what decisions you can
live with.

"For me, if I'm going to try to live in this town, I was going
to do everything I could to stop the industrialization of Flower
Mound so it won't become a community that I don't want to live
in."

•

Not all residents are protesting gas drilling in Flower Mound.
Some are celebrating. On the western part of town, residents with
significant acreage have leased or sold mineral rights and built
new homes.

Mineral rights owners are typically paid two different ways.
They are paid up front per acre for leasing rights. Royalties
follow after a well is drilled and proven economically successful.
Williams, one of the larger gas drilling companies in Flower Mound,
has paid millions to North Texas residents. In 2009, Williams paid
approximately $25 million in royalties to 2,000 landowners in seven
different counties in the Barnett Shale, according to spokesman
Kelly Swan. Another company, Titan Operating, has provided $12.5
million in lease bonuses to 1,498 Flower Mound land owners,
according to spokeswoman Susan Medina.

Though some towns have made significant income from gas
drilling, Flower Mound has not embraced it as a revenue source.
Instead, what money the city makes from drilling goes back into
monitoring and regulating. Town spokesman Michael Ryan says,
consequently, "It is pretty much a wash as far as revenue goes for
the city itself."

In the past few months, the town has decided to increase the
amount of time and money spent on regulating the industry.
Officials have purchased new emissions testing equipment and added
a full-time staff position dedicated to the regulation, management
and supervision of gas wells. If any illegal emissions are found,
the town contacts the appropriate agency.

"I think we have recognized the fact that we can't rely on any
other entity - be it the state or federal government or the
industry itself," Ryan says. "A lot of people want to ask the
industry to do self-regulation. I think that is one thing that sets
Flower Mound apart. We realized that we can't rely on somebody else
to protect our residents."

Even state legislators have recently made a push to increase
monitoring in Flower Mound. State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound,
asked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to locate a
permanent emissions monitor there. In late November, TCEQ installed
a monitor near the intersection of FM1171 and Shiloh Road and
nearby gas production sites.

The monitor tests the air hourly for benzene and other volatile
organic compounds, and makes the results available online. After a
gas leak at a dehydration unit on Shiloh Road on Dec. 30, residents
reminded each other on a public Facebook group to check the air
monitor data online.

•

On one wintry Saturday morning, protesters stood in the cold,
waving signs across from Hilliard Field. Watching the belching
white smoke float over their houses, they show up with their
children, parents and grandparents with handmade signs declaring
"Ban Fracking Now" and "Drilling is Killing." The quiet, polite
crowd vows to return every Saturday so others will see and hear
their concerns.

Many motorists pass by, honking their support and giving a
thumbs-up, a wave or a smile. Occasionally someone will make an
obscene gesture, but protest organizer Sue Ann Lorig says by far
most of the feedback is positive.

Lorig is protesting because she wants the hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking, to stop, at least until the Environmental Protection
Agency finishes its study of the drilling process's effects on
health, water quality and the environment. The results are due to
be released in 2012.

"Why can't we wait for those results before proceeding?" she
says. "There is no hurry, but once the harm is done, we can't undo
it. We can't unfrack the wells. We can't remove the toxins from the
water."

Lorig says she worries about the documented cases of health
problems in the town. One group of 10 women formed the Liberty
Elementary Moms Breast Cancer Support Group. Most of the women are
younger than 40.

A spate of childhood leukemia cases has gotten the community's
attention, too. Many of the leukemia and breast cancer cases are
clustered near Liberty Elementary, where the earliest gas wells
were drilled and fracked in Flower Mound.

"We don't know yet whether they are associated with gas
drilling, but we do know that there is an extremely high rate of
health problems, and we are concerned that there could be a
relationship," Lorig says.

Some of these people have spoken up publicly about their beliefs
that shale gas production is the cause of the disease. Last year,
the Texas Department of State Health Services studied these cancer
clusters, finding that between 1998 and 2007, all cancer types
except for breast cancer fell within the expected range. According
to the study, the higher breast cancer rates could "likely be
attributed to the limitations of the data and the likelihood that
women [in the clusters] get mammograms more often than women in
Texas overall."

However, none of the cancers among the women in the support
group were found by mammogram. They were too young for routine
screening. Instead, they were found by physicians during
examinations.

The results of the study for the years of 2007 to 2009 contained
even higher cancer totals. The study stated that the cases of
leukemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and breast cancer were "somewhat
higher" compared to 1998-2007.

On Nov. 8, worries about the health dangers of gas production
materialized in Lorig's former Flower Mound home almost a mile away
from a gas production facility. Lorig says she noticed that her
nose was burning, and she was sneezing a lot. Her 15-year-old
daughter was dizzy and had a headache. The next day, when she and
her daughter drove by the facility, they noticed a strong odor and
their symptoms grew worse.

Alarmed, she called the Texas Commission on Environmental
Quality, which is charged with monitoring and protecting the
state's air and water. TCEQ found total volatile organic compounds
at her home were 46 times greater than levels found in typical
ambient urban air.

•

Today, some Flower Mound residents are trying their best to get
out - including Darlene and Gary Bray, who live near Hilliard
Field. When they went house-hunting in Carrollton, their real
estate agent said the four previous appointments had been with
Flower Mound residents.

After selling their mineral rights, they learned the hard way
what it's like to live with gas drilling within a community.

Gary Bray, who owns a construction company, says the driller
requested four variances at Hilliard Field - for a shed, a well,
trees and a creek - all too close to the drilling site. To solve
the issue, town officials allowed the driller to tear down the
shed, plug the well, cut down the trees, and move the pad site away
from the creek and closer to the road, Bray says.

"Ordinances are made to protect natural habitat," he says. "How
can you cut down the trees that it was made to protect?"

The couple now regrets the deal.

"We were fat, dumb and happy," Gary Bray says.

"We would have never signed if we had known all this was going
on," Darlene Bray adds.

"We are challenged with balancing the needs of all of our
residents," he says.

"Unfortunately, in this situation, sometimes there are
conflicting needs."

The drilling at Hilliard Field has also been a concern for
Flower Mound real estate agent Kris Wise. Residents of
neighborhoods around Hilliard have contacted her because they worry
the drilling will impact their property values. She thinks the
drilling may be tough on the nearby real estate market because of
its central location.

"We go to great lengths in Flower Mound to preserve what things
look like, yet we put what is very unsightly at the entrance to our
town," Wise says.

Flower Mound commissioned a study from Integra Realty Resources
to find out how much drilling has affected home prices. The August
2010 study concluded that residential homes valued over $250,000
that were immediately adjacent to well sites can lose 3 percent to
14 percent in value.

Wise says the true loss is often far greater, and nobody wants
to buy homes near gas wells, not even for a 10 percent price
cut.

"Some people, even if you gave it to them for a dollar, still
wouldn't buy it," she says.

•

The Palmers, who live across the street from the Cummings drill
site in western Flower Mound, had planned to sell their home in a
few years when their children went to college, but now they are
afraid that may no longer be possible because of all the industrial
development in their area.

They never imagined any of their current problems two years ago
when the first gas companies came knocking. The couple was hesitant
to lease their mineral rights at first because their home was much
closer to the drilling than most of their neighbors. They were told
that not signing the lease would only cause them to lose the bonus
money. They understood that the drilling would happen with or
without them. Not seeing a clear benefit to keeping their rights,
they were one of the last in their area to sign the lease.

Then, they just hoped it would be over soon.

"We had heard, 'We are good neighbors, we are good neighbors to
the community. It will be there just a short bit and go away.' But
the wells have been there over a year," Kirsten Palmer says.

Though the gas wells across the street are 900 feet away, now
these corporate neighbors are going to be even closer. The plot of
land beside the Palmers' home has been sold to Williams, and the
company has begun building a compression station there.

The station's plans include three compressors, several water
tanks and a metering station. An industrial road to the new
facility now runs adjacent to the couple's land, along the full
length of their property line. That has brought graders, dump
trucks and other construction equipment 30 feet from their
home.

During construction of the roadway, Garrick said his whole house
vibrated like an earthquake.

"Construction is not clean business and it's not quiet," he
says.

Flower Mound's ordinances do not allow this type of development
so close to homes. Although the Palmers are Flower Mound residents,
this piece of neighboring land fell in Bartonville's
extraterritorial jurisdiction, leaving it open to all types of
industrial projects not allowed in either town.

After the compression station permit was filed with Denton
County, Bartonville leaders relinquished the land from the town's
extraterritorial jurisdiction in August, hoping that Flower Mound,
with its tougher gas drilling regulations, would pick up the
land.

Ryan, the town spokesman, said Flower Mound officials sat down
with Bartonville a couple of times to discuss how to clean up
borders in the unincorporated property between the towns because
that land was close to urban environments. He said they were
concerned that it would be "very easy for someone to come into
unincorporated Denton County, where the regulations are a lot less
strict, and put some kind of compression station or injection
well."

Bartonville repealed the land release and has since annexed the
land. The town is also pursuing a moratorium on any new drilling
and production activity in that area. But the gas company has filed
a lawsuit against both towns, and a judge agreed to let them
continue to develop the land.

While the cities and the gas company fight it out in court, the
Palmers are left to wonder what will happen to their country way of
life as construction gets under way.

In a letter to the family, a Williams representative wrote that
"the noise is similar to that of a residential A/C unit." The
couple remains skeptical that the noise and air quality won't
affect their family, but they don't really want to leave.

•

As Kirsten Palmer walks outside and stands by the backyard pool
of her dream home, she points to the stand of trees that will be
cut down to make way for the compressor station.

"You feel almost forced to sell, but where are you going to go?
Drilling is everywhere," she says.

They haven't even checked with a real estate agent. They love
the area and their home. Since they bought their house, they have
remodeled it twice and added a second story.

"Had we known this stuff was happening, we never would have made
that kind of investment," Garrick Palmer says. "It's one thing to
go buy a house, and it's another to pour your heart and soul into
it and then know you're not even going to be able to sell it."

Instead, they just want it all to go away. Since that doesn't
seem likely, they have decided, like so many other Flower Mound
residents, the best way to help their family is to become
activists.

"I used to think that was a bad word," Garrick Palmer says. "I
never planned on becoming an activist after I turned 50."

But he feels like now they have no choice but to protect
themselves.

"We're fighting for our life," he says.

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